1. Rationale Group Work for Interactive Teaching

2. Group work for interactive teaching implies: Pupils learn by interacting with each other Teachers’ role is to create a supportive environment for pupils to interact Small number of pupils work together to solve a problem Pupils construct their own understanding of the problem and arrive at possible solutions

3. Types of talk in a discussion Mercer (2000) has identified three types of talk during group work: Disputational talk in which speakers… are competitive rather than co-operative don’t listen each stick to their own point of view make their own decisions Cumulative talk in which speakers… share ideas agree with each other do not critically evaluate ideas Source: Mercer, N. (1995). The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk Amongst Teachers and Learners. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters..

4. Exploratory talk in which speakers… all actively participate ask each other questions ‘What do you think…?’ ‘Why do you think that…?’ share relevant information ‘Do you remember…?’ give reasons for their views ‘I think that because…’ constructively criticise ‘Yes, but if…’ try to reach agreement but they don’t need to achieve that ‘Do we all agree that…?’

5. What are the effects of promoting Exploratory Talk in the classroom? Pupils… become more involved in learning become better at solving problems together improve their individual scores on reasoning tests and national tests in subjects like science and maths

6. Group work is useful because: It works well in very large classes as well as smaller ones because everyone actively participates It encourages less confident pupils to contribute their ideas It allows teachers to focus on deeper learning with fewer pupils It therefore motivates the teachers and the learners It provides opportunities for pupils to ‘teach’ and learn from each other It creates a learning culture that is more involving and focuses on problem solving Source: Criticos, C., Long, R., Moletsane, R., Mthiyane, N., & Mays, T. (2009). Getting practical about classroom-based teaching for the National Curriculum Statement. South Africa: Oxford University Press.